


on the taste of home (a story from floor 6)

by everythingFangirl



Series: when I'm with you, I can only be me (stories from the victors' tower) [9]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Lunch Club, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Birthday, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Fluff, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25866931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingFangirl/pseuds/everythingFangirl
Summary: Charlie smiles and accepts the others’ congratulations even as the realization makes itself at home in his mind. He’s going to be eighteen tomorrow. An adult. He’d almost forgotten. It’s a milestone, to be sure, even though in the Districts the age of nineteen is much more celebrated, much more revered. A promise of safety, of life.Even so, eighteen is an important time. And the fact that he hadn’t remembered, well… if that isn’t a testament to the strange way time passes at the Tower, he doesn’t know what is.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: when I'm with you, I can only be me (stories from the victors' tower) [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1715008
Comments: 14
Kudos: 83
Collections: victors' tower canon works





	on the taste of home (a story from floor 6)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WreakingHavok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreakingHavok/gifts).



> PHEW got this out just in time for Charlie's birthday! Well, technically in my timezone it's already past midnight but sshhhhhhhhhh

Charlie's woken by the muffled sounds of raised voices coming through his walls. Still half-disoriented, he briefly considers going back to sleep, but if everyone else is already awake he might as well get up and eat, right?

When he enters the kitchen, Ted's poking at something in the oven, Alex is hovering anxiously beside him, and Noah and Cooper are watching from their seats at the kitchen island. All eyes turn to him as he crosses the doorway, and there’s a moment of stunned silence; Cooper drops his head onto the table with a muffled "goddammit", and Alex releases a bark of laughter. 

Ted sighs, pulling the tray out of the oven and slamming the door. "Why does this happen every time?" 

"Maybe if you considered not talking so loud, we wouldn’t have woken him up early," Noah says with a smile. 

"And maybe if you let us help you we could have gotten this done faster," Alex adds. 

"Maybe I would have, if you'd been able to follow any of my instructions without fucking something up!" 

As Ted and Alex devolve into lighthearted bickering, Cooper notices Charlie’s confusion and turns to look at him. “We were just going to bake a cake, like we usually do, but Ted insisted on making this once specific recipe, and he refused to let anyone else work on it. It feels like we’ve been here for hours.”

That doesn’t explain much. “Cake? I…”

Cake. 

Ah, right. 

“Happy birthday!” Noah adds. “Well, early birthday.”

It’s his birthday tomorrow. 

Charlie smiles and accepts the others’ congratulations even as the realization makes itself at home in his mind. He’s going to be eighteen tomorrow. An adult. He’d almost forgotten. It’s a milestone, to be sure, even though in the Districts the age of nineteen is much more celebrated, much more revered. A promise of safety, of life. 

( ~~A gift of oak wood, a symbol of the life you’re finally free to have. A year later, Angel, the balcony, a bird carved of oak, a gift he thought he’d never receive.~~ )

Even so, eighteen is an important time. And the fact that he hadn’t remembered, well… if that isn’t a testament to the strange way time passes at the Tower, he doesn’t know what is.

Ted brings the tray from the oven onto the table, and Charlie can see that it holds several plain-looking cupcakes. “Well, since you’re here… They’re probably going to be hot, since they literally just came out of the oven, but go ahead. Try one.” Ted pries one of the cupcakes out and hands it to him with a smile. It’s certainly warm to the touch, so Charlie only dares a small bite at first. 

It’s nothing special, really. Just a regular, sweet cake flavor -

And then the taste of blueberries explodes in his mouth. 

_Running barefoot through the woods, the undergrowth rustling beneath their feet and the smell of pine needles in the air, dropping to their knees to search under the leaves for a glimpse of blue, the berries bursting with sweetness in their mouths, laughing at each other’s blue-stained fingers and tongues, gathering some in a bucket and bringing them home for mom to sprinkle into breads or cakes or jams that bring the taste of summer even to the coldest winter months -_

It tastes like home. 

And, oh, what a punch to the gut that is. 

The significance of that day hits him all at once. He should be home with his friends, his family, blowing out the candles on one of mom’s cakes and laughing with Condi and Grizzly and thanking them for the gifts that none of the people here could possibly know how to give. It hits him just how far away from home he is, how the taste of blueberries in his mouth is just a little off, how it’s the closest he’ll ever get to that taste of home again. 

He’s only half-aware of Ted speaking, “I looked for recipes from district seven. Of course, the blueberries aren’t from there, it’s practically impossible to import wild produce like that to the Capitol, so these are greenhouse-grown ones from eleven. It’s the best I could do, but hopefully it’s close enough.”

When Charlie opens his eyes, his vision is strangely blurry. There's something hesitant in Ted's smile. “What do you think?”

Charlie remembers. 

January. A sunrise. A balcony, and its lone occupant. 

_Maybe we're not family yet, but... you don't have to do this alone._

A peace offering, a repayment, whatever this is… 

Whatever this is, he’s trying. He’s really, genuinely, trying to make him feel better, and even if it’s not quite the same…

Alex, Cooper and Noah are all looking at him now, too, expectantly. They understand, Charlie forces himself to remember. They understand, they must know how it feels for it to not be enough, that it’ll never feel quite right like this, but… the best they can do is try. That’s all they ever can do. 

They’re trying. And, no matter how painful it may feel at first, Charlie has to try too. 

So Charlie swallows the bite, and swallows his tears, and smiles back. 

"It's perfect. It’s the best thing I’ve eaten in months. Thank you."

It's genuine. And Ted's own smile brightens in response.

~

“Catch!”

Alex tosses a small velvet pouch across the living room, which Charlie snatches out of the air. For a moment, not knowing what’s inside, he dares to hope -

The object that drops into his palm is metallic, not wooden. It’s also like nothing else Charlie’s ever seen. A strange flattened cylinder, tapering to a point at one end, and with a circular protrusion at the top. “Thanks! What is it?”

“It’s a kazoo. I thought you might like it.”

“...what’s a kazoo?”

“How do you not know what a kazoo is?" When Charlie continues to stare at him blankly, he adds, "It’s like an instrument. You hum into it, and it changes the sound.”

Tentatively, Charlie raises the kazoo to his mouth, flipping it around when Alex interjects with “No, the other end”. He hums a single note into it experimentally; the sound that comes out has a strange buzzing quality to it. A completely useless item, yet another Capitol-produced trinket with no real value to it, and yet…

And yet, the gesture. It feels familiar. It feels foreign, too, but in a good way.

Charlie laughs. “Oh, I can do so much damage with this.”

Alex laughs too, while Cooper flops backwards against the arm of his couch. “Told you this wasn’t gonna end well.”

“Oh, it definitely won’t. In a few days, this place is gonna sound like a ka _zoo_.” 

Ted throws a cushion at him, Alex laughs harder, and Cooper chuckles too. Noah’s eyes crinkle into a smile over the rim of his coffee cup. 

It’s nice. Charlie would be lying to himself if he said it wasn’t. He’d be lying to himself if he said these people weren’t his friends. He’d be lying to himself if the he said the sight of Ted’s theatrical frown breaking into a grin, Alex doubling over with laughter as Charlie hums a tune into the kazoo, Noah and Cooper sharing a weary but content glance, didn’t make him feel just a little more at home.

And maybe it’s enough. In time, it could be enough.

~

(A continent and a life away, four wooden carvings sit on a table. The hands that made them can only hope that the person they’re meant for knows they haven’t forgotten him. The carvings will not reach him. 

~~At least, not yet.~~ )


End file.
